It was the anticipated rematch of the 2024 National Championship Game, but history wasn't on the side of the Denver Pioneers hockey team.
 
In the seven occurrences where two teams met in the following NCAA Tournament after playing in the previous national championship outing, the squad that lost that title contest got revenge over the defending champion. Until this year.
 
Make defending champions now 1-7 in title rematches.
 
No. 3-seed Denver continued its national title defense by defeating No. 1-overall seed Boston College 3-1 in the NCAA Northeast Regional Final on March 30 at SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Pioneers beat the BC Eagles 2-0 last April 13 in the 2024 NCAA Championship Game in St. Paul, Minnesota.
 
"The national champion we knew coming in was 0-7 in the title rematch—now it's 1-7—so there was a lot of things stacked up against us and made this challenging," said DU Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle after the win over BC. "I thought we obviously got Boston College's best game. They had a very good game plan I thought early. Obviously, we adjusted into the second period and were able to open the game up for ourselves a little bit. Can't say much more, I mean it took everybody from our team tonight."
 
The Pioneers scored twice in a matter of five minutes at the end of the first and early in the second periods to break a scoreless game, and goaltender Matt Davis and the Denver blueliners played shutdown defense the rest of the way.  Eric Pohlkamp tallied at 18:19 of the first and James Reeder scored at 2:59 of the second, and Davis made 15 of his 35 saves on the evening in the third period before Zeev Buium buried an empty-netter in the closing seconds.
 
Much like it was in last season's national championship game, the final period was once again a crucial test that DU successfully passed in the outing. While the Pios were outshot 15-2 in the last stanza, Denver was sound in its defensive structure and didn't take any penalties—unlike in last year's meeting with BC when the squad went to the penalty box twice in the final frame.
 
"We felt like we would continue to defend at a high level and potentially have some chances going the other way," said Carle of the third period. "I thought we, you know, if you look at shots or possession, what they generated from this game in the third to the championship game a year ago, I thought we did a better job keeping them to the outside. It helped that we didn't take two penalties in the third (like in 2024), that was huge. To only take one on the night, I said it after our Providence game, it's astounding that [Boston College is] only at 18 percent because they are lethal and dangerous (on the power play), and I thought the one penalty was a huge factor for us in winning the game tonight."
 
The Pioneers know it's all about surviving and advancing to the next round in the national tournament with four Game 7 scenarios. They've done that well in the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four years en route to three Frozen Four appearances.
 
Denver has now made 20 Frozen Fours in program history and has reached the final weekend of the college hockey season six times in the last nine years.
 
If DU wants to add to its NCAA-record 10 national championships, the team will first have to get through another championship rematch with Western Michigan in the national semifinals on Thursday in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
The Broncos defeated the Pioneers three weeks earlier in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship Game, but the tables have now turned as DU aims for revenge while WMU is looking to continue its storybook season and send the Pios back to Denver.
 
"In [college hockey] you have to have that killer instinct and that emotion this time of year to try and win and send teams home," Carle said.
 
"It's a reality. They are trying to send us home, we are trying to send them home. That's what it boils down to… we are trying to survive and send them home and advance."
 
NATTY DAVIS
 
Denver goaltender Matt Davis continued to showcase why he is one of the best goaltenders in the country when the lights are brightest.
 
After earning Regional and Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player honors last season, he only allowed two goals against on 67 shots faced in the victories against Providence and Boston College in this year's Northeast Regionals. PC's Austen May tallied four seconds into a major penalty in the third period on March 28 and Teddy Stiga of BC scored on a breakaway with 53 seconds remaining in the second period on March 30—Stiga netted a similar goal to give the David Carle-coached USA squad the overtime victory in the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship Gold Medal Game, with Zeev Buium providing the primary assist.
 
Stiga's goal ended a 106:32 shutout streak that Davis had over Boston College that began in the third period on Oct. 21, 2023 in Chestnut Hill and continued through last year's national championship game.
 
"Stuff happens. He made a great move and ended up beating me five-hole, which I never like. You just got to move on," Davis said of Stiga's tally. "It's always tough to give up goals in the last minute, but at the end of the day you got 20 more minutes to play and you need to be ready for that."
 
Davis went on stop each of the 15 shots he faced in the third frame by BC and improved to 6-0 with a 0.74 goals-against average and .976 save percentage is six career national tournament games.
 
"He's a proven winner now, and I thought he had an excellent season this year," Carle said of his netminder. "Probably came into the tournament I think above .920 (save percentage), so it's not like his numbers are slight, he was either first or tied for first in wins. So he's got a great resume through the regular season this year, got to play the full year healthy this year, most of the first half, but he does have kind of this killer instinct to turn it on in the most important time of the year.
 
"So, I think for teams watching at the next level, it's a critical factor. He's identified that 95 percent of the position is mental, he's got a great mental game."
 
Davis is part of the winningest senior class in program history with 124 victories in four years and is one of 65 Pioneers to win multiple national championships. He and Connor Caponi, Jack Devine and Carter King now look to join George Konik and Bill Masterton as the only players to be a part of three national championship squads, though Konik and Masterton did not play as freshmen during DU's inaugural 1958 title run.
 
DEFEATING THE MANCHESTER DEMONS
 
The Pioneers were at SNHU Arena in Manchester for the second time in three seasons and were looking for their first-ever win at the venue after making two previous trips to New Hampshire's largest city.
 
Denver lost 2-0 to Cornell in the regional semifinals in 2023, which came 10 years after falling to host New Hampshire in the same semifinal round in 2013.
 
DU vanquished those Manchester demons by defeating a pair of New England squads for its first victories at the regional site.
 
"It was nice for us to be here two years ago, for those of us who were on the team," said captain Carter King. "You know you probably aren't going to have ideal conditions anywhere you go when you're playing two games a day and multiple teams are practicing before games, so for us it was focusing on what we can control. There's going to be some weird bounces in the game every now and then. You have to play with it, and I was proud of the group for focusing on the things that we can control."
 
Denver was the only squad that wasn't from the U.S. northeast at the regional, as Boston College and Bentley were each about an hour drive away and Providence was less than two hours from campus. Even with a crowd significantly one way against the Pios, they didn't let it affect their play.
 
If anything, that negative fan support was a positive for them.
 
"We've been really good on the road all year, and I think we feed off of that kind of energy," said Matt Davis. "It's definitely a great atmosphere to play in front of."
 
MORE NOTABLES

• Zeev Buium was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Northeast Regional and was joined on the All-Tournament Team by fellow defensemen Eric Pohlkamp, forwards Carter King and Aidan Thompson and goaltender Matt Davis.
• The Pioneers are now 5-1 in national tournament games against Boston College, winning each of the last three meetings.  DU defeated Providence in the regional semifinals, earning its first victory against the Friars in the squads' second meeting in tournament history.
• Matt Davis posted a 106:32 shutout streak of Boston College that stretched across three games dating back to Oct. 21, 2023 and included a shutout in the 2024 NCAA Championship Game.
• The National Championship rematch was the eighth time that two teams met in the national tournament after playing for the NCAA title the prior year. It was the first time that the defending champion earned the victory in the rematch (1-7).
• DU had never faced a team in a championship rematch the following year in the national tournament.
• The Pioneers were playing BC for the second-straight national tourney; they did the same thing last year with Cornell after playing the Big Red in 2023.
• Eric Pohlkamp tallied his 11th goal of the season in the Regional Final, tying his total from his freshman season in 2023-24 at Bemidji State.
• Denver had eight players make their debuts in the national tournament on March 28 vs. Providence: Garrett Brown, Hagen Burrows, Jake Fisher, Tory Pitner, Eric Pohlkamp, James Reeder, Samu Salminen and Alec Whipple.
• Zeev Buium recorded his fifth career game-winning goal and fourth of the season on March 28 vs. Providence.
• The Pioneers' five goals scored vs. the Friars were their most in a national tournament game since DU won by the same 5-1 score in the 2022 NCAA Championship Game vs. Minnesota State on April 9, 2022 in Boston, Mass.
• Denver is now 2-2 all-time in NCAA Tournament games in Manchester, New Hampshire, after previously dropping games at SNHU Arena in 2013 and 2023.
• The Pioneers improved to 3-0 in Sunday games this season.